I don’t expect this diary to get much traction unless by sheer virtue of the fact that it may be controversial. But this is something that needs to be said and needs to be done.
I think it’s fair to say that as democrats, most of us here consider ourselves to be believers in fairness and openness. We’ve come to despise the dirty tricks that exemplify our friends on the other side of the aisle.
Yet we have to concede that many of these tricks such as swift boating and push polling have been very effective. Our fine democratic candidates have far too often simply rolled over or tried to ignore these tricks, which in the eyes of the general voting public have too often made them appear to be weak at best or acknowledge accuracy at worst.
One thing can be said of the American voter, he does not respect timidity. When electing leaders, especially presidents, Americans seem to look for strength and conviction. False challenges must be countered forcefully and effectively. Yet too often democrats have been seen as weak kneed, unwilling to stand up to the accusers and their ridiculous claims.
This view has been reinforced recently in congress with capitulation votes to a president with a 25% approval rating, and further reinforced by a congress that has explicitly taken impeachment off the table, ironically in the case of a president who has clearly broken more laws and by more severe infractions than any previous president.
In the face of these realities, it may be time to reassess what we view as appropriate campaign tactics.
Clearly claiming the moral high ground has done nothing for us, nor has it persuaded the republicans in this country to clean up their act. On the contrary it has served to encourage even more egregious behavior on their part. It’s almost like handing them a free pass, like telling them go ahead, we won’t do a damn thing about it.
By failing to fight back, our candidates have time and again gone along like so many sheep to slaughter, yet they are not sheep, they are worse. Sheep are truly innocent creatures who have no capacity to understand what is about to happen as they approach the slaughterhouse. But democratic politicians are intelligent well educated human beings who know (or at least should know) full well what they are facing during the electoral process.
Yet over and over, during every election cycle, they have proven unwilling to fight back, and on the rare occasions when they have, it’s too often been too late or tepid a response to make an effective counter. We bloggers have been pretty good at taking up some of the slack, but we are not the actual candidates, and so our effectiveness has been limited.
What our candidates must do is to be much more aggressive. They need to be on the offensive, attacking viciously and relentlessly. Use some of the same tactics such as push polling and yes, even swift boating (albeit with truth and accuracy, not fabrication). This is the only language the repugs understand. Only when they realize that they can be just as badly hurt by it as democrats can, will they have any incentive to clean up their act. Now I know many will start flaming me about now with the tired concepts of staying above the fray or not sinking to the level of the opposition.
To them, I say, I understand your position but the truth is no politician is above the fray. They are in the fray and they must engage it. And as far as sinking to their level, well I would say their level has been damned effective, but I do happen to believe that we can engage at their level if it is for a higher purpose and if we do so based on factual accuracy. Because many of them are inherently corrupt, there is no lack of fodder for the fray. They have made their own bed, it’s up to our candidates to start making them lie in it.
This is not mere vindictiveness, not simply a desire to exact retribution on the evil that has pervaded our electoral process. Yes those concepts are at times tempting, and I for one would like nothing better than to see some of those republican dirty tricksters get their comeuppance, but this is for a more profound purpose.
It is quite literally to teach them a lesson, hopefully that they won’t soon forget. That they do not live in glass houses, that they are not invulnerable to attack. We have to face the reality that negatives are far more compelling than positives in a political campaign.
If we can do it with truth and accuracy so much the better, but these people desperately need to be swiftboated to oblivion. They need to be wiped out by their own tactics, utterly destroyed as they have attempted to do to us.
The media in this country has been complicit in the evils of this system for many years, but therein lay their own weakness. Because main stream media is now given to sensationalism, they become a rather easily used tool. Republican corruption is sort of a gift that keeps on giving. In a way it seems to define them and highlight our differences. And with a media that just can’t resist the temptation to over exploit a juicy story it’s up to our candidates to give them what they want.
Democrats need to aggressively and vigorously call out every republican on every front at every opportunity. No more Mr. Nice Guy. It’s time to start kicking them in crotch just as they have done to us. When the American people see democrats start to stand up to republicans and really throw in their faces the same mud they’ve been slinging at us for years, the media will jump all over it and why shouldn’t they? They make their money by hawking titillation in all it’s forms. No network, no newspaper, no news magazine makes a dime by reporting the news. It’s all about ratings and sales. And that comes through sensationalism.
That’s the world we live in now. Democrats can either learn the way this works, or continue to be plowed under by it.